Flats at centre of Galloway's postal voting fraud claims

A Scotland Yard inquiry into electoral malpractice before next week's local elections will focus on a tower block where 90 of the 93 residents may have been victims of postal voting fraud.

Officials from George Galloway's Respect party yesterday revealed that the dossier they have passed to special branch includes details of irregularities at Anglesey House in Limehouse, east London, where virtually all of the tenants have been registered for postal votes despite the fact that few applied for one.

The police have been told of a string of estates that appear to have generated a suspicious number of postal vote applications. Residents who have requested a postal vote complain of their ballot papers being diverted to unauthorised addresses.

Mr Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said members of his party had tracked down the households where postal votes had been registered in questionable circumstances. "We have found hundreds, there must be thousands," he said. "This may be one of the most serious examples of political corruption in modern British history." Respect's national chairman, John Rees, said the irregularities increase the possibility of legal challenges after next Thursday's vote.

Yesterday three Respect activists won a high court case after being barred from standing in Tower Hamlets because they made mistakes on their nomination papers. Counsel for Sultana Begum, Foyyoz Ali and Mohammed Hassan said that the council's returning officer had a duty to check forms if they were presented in good time and point out any mistakes.

Mr Justice Keith ruled that the three had a "legitimate expectation" that they would be treated in the same way as other candidates whose forms - unlike those of the Respect candidates - were fully checked for accuracy before the deadline in April. He said their treatment was an "abuse of power" by returning officer Patricia Parker, adding: "They had every reason to believe that if they delivered their nomination papers in good time, which on any view of the facts they did, any error would be pointed out to them in time for it to be rectified."

The judge's ruling means that next week's scheduled poll in the St Katherine's and Wapping ward will take place at a later date. Ms Begum said afterwards: "This is a great victory and the judge's ruling shows that our concerns were valid. It was very important to all three of us to bring this case. We have been campaigning for more than two months in these wards and if we hadn't been allowed to stand we would have been letting the residents there down."

A Tower Hamlets council spokesman said: "Allegations of postal vote malpractice are being investigated by the police, who were called in by the council before Easter when its systems revealed potential irregularities.

"It is regrettable that doubt is being cast on the council's systems and processes, which are not at fault here."